Moving art: a saga of Roman remains, Rubens and restoration

The concern Simon Jenkins has about the removal of art treasures from the regions to London galleries also applies to archaeological and other artefacts (London should keep its hands off the treasures of the north, October 7).

Since the 18th century, many of the most important finds across the UK have been removed from their original areas of discovery to be deposited with the British Museum, a process that often strips them of their regional significance. However, the recent case of the Staffordshire moorlands pan offers an extremely positive method of resolving the tension between wishing to give an object its status as a national treasure while retaining its regional context.

Originally found in Staffordshire by a metal detectorist, this extremely rare contemporary Roman "souvenir" of military service along the western end of Hadrian's Wall was purchased through a heritage lottery grant and is now jointly owned by the British Museum, the museum local to the find site (Stoke Museum & Art Gallery) and the regional museum of the area to which the pan relates (Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle). Joint ownership guarantees that the pan will be placed upon permanent tour, with each institution able to display and interpret the find within its own context for a year at a time (beginning with Stoke in January).

It is unfortunate that such an innovative arrangement has perhaps not received the recognition it deserves within the museum professions, let alone the national media. Matthew ConstantineTullie House Museum & Art Gallery

The proposed loan of the National Gallery's (contested) version of Rubens's lost Samson and Delilah to the site of the original picture's first home above a fireplace in Antwerp could be a very risky exercise (Report, October 10). If the gallery's picture were to be seen in the original room along with the contemporary painted copy of the room that was made when the original Rubens was in situ on the firebreast wall, it would become startlingly apparent just how very radically the composition of the National Gallery version departs from that of the original Rubens.

Such a loan would also present the gallery with a dilemma: should its picture be sent in its present frame (which is only a reproduction made at the time of the picture's restoration at the National Gallery in 1982), or in the frame in which it was bought in 1980 - and was said at the time to be its original frame? We will be discussing this matter and publishing newly uncovered scholarly evidence against the present attribution in our autumn journal. Michael DaleyDirector, ArtWatch UK